Femininity, Elegance and Elaborate Clothing celebrated for Bang and Olufsen’s artist collaboration with Fin DAC

The contemporary, smart tech brand Bang & Olufsen have partnered with renowned visionary urban artist Fin DAC to create 30 limited edition Beoplay A9 speakers featuring Fin Dac’s signature artwork.

Fin DAC, an Irish-born street artist known for his depictions of Eurasian women in traditional dress, explores themes related to female emancipation and empowerment, readjusting the male gaze, and disrupting colonialist attitudes surrounding the Eastern experience.

I sat with the artist a while before the launch event begun, and I was touched by his gentleness when it comes to the women he paints. He refers to all of his subjects as his ‘muses’, and goes on to tell me that he does not work with the muses in person, rather gets imagery in the form of headshots and works from those. When asked why, he tells me there is too much of a negative stigma around artists and their muses, in particular male artists and female muses. Fin DAC’s work is instantly recognisable, proving his feminine approach to his work is appreciated by admirers and those in the street art community.

Fin on his collaboration

Fin: I haven't deviated too much from what I would generally do anyway. It's just about trying to find an image that works with the circular canvas rather than the typical type of portions that I work with.

Charlotte: I noticed you typically like either a canvas, but I feel like your preferred method to be on a building.

Fin: Yes, absolutely.

Charlotte: Tell me about that. How did you well, that's how I started.

Fin: So the canvas work really only came about because I had to sell work to start to make myself financially viable and also to paint for the trips where I travel around the world and paint on buildings. Painting buildings is optimum for me, not just because I'm doing what I love, but because I'm doing the other thing that I love, which is traveling. And the third thing I love is meeting other people and other ethnicities and more specifically, other cultures. And that's the kind of thing that I'm into, if you like my personal life as well. So to sort of bring all those things together.

Charlotte: So what was your inspiration for going with? Because I know your work is very typically these guys and really making them colorful and bringing them to life. Is that something that you saw when you were traveling or you just fell in love with it?

Fin: No. So that influence comes from early childhood when I lived at home with my parents. They had very little art on the walls, but one of the pieces that they had was by an English guy called Orby Beardsley who comes from the turn of the 20th century or the 19th century. He basically was an illustrator, and he illustrated for people like Oscar Wildes magazines or Fanzines from the time he died very young. But his work was very influential both in terms of the Art Deco movement and articles and as well. And I think seeing his imagery in the house. And then also. My parents had. Like. A Japanese TSET with these decorative wood block prints from the Edo period in Japan. And I think they just sort of sat in my head waiting for the time when I would become an artist and when I did that's. What I not that the work resembles those things in any way. But the foundations of the work definitely from what we've had to use to paint very elaborate clothing and very satuisque women with kind of defined look about them. And that's essentially what I've done as well.

Charlotte: How do you figure out your kind of color schemes? Because it's very vibrant, but at the same time, it has this real elegance to it.

Fin: I don't I don't figure out the time, I do it organically. So what happens is - it's one of the reasons why I don't paint at festivals, street art festivals, because when you do those things, they want you to order your paint before you go. And I'm like, why did I do that? Because first of all, I don't know what I'm painting. I want the building or the environment, the scenario, the surroundings to somehow have an impact on what I paint, whether it be the way the light falls on the wall or the basic surroundings of the wall, whether it's industrial or whether it's more kind of gentrifying. I want something in this.
Situation to have an impact on what I'm painting. A lot of the time, the architecture has an impact on what I'm painting. I actually design according to something on the wall, whether it be a window or the shape of the roof, whatever it might be. I like to have some of those influences come into the artwork because otherwise just another painting on a wall, and the color schemes are part of that. The idea is that I put one color down, whether it's in the studio or on a wall, put one color down, consider what color might go with that, and then I just build up the color scheme as I'm going along. And funny thing about that is I very rarely second guess myself. Normally, whatever color I put on the canvas, it stays on the canvas. I don't go back and paint over and think to myself, well, that color doesn't quite look right.

Charlotte: I see. So for your collaboration, was this a piece that you made specifically for this, or was it a preexisting piece?

Fin: It was a pre existing piece that I had painted once, but had never really done. Obviously, these pieces here are prints, so the original of those artworks would have been painted on the wood panel because if you look closely at them, once they finished, you'll see that you can actually in this one especially, you can see some of the wood grain coming through on the face, and you'll see it in the dress as well. So the idea for me with the wood panels is I want the wood to have a say in how the image looks as well. I don't want it to be a flat surface and absolutely perfect. It means for me, the warmth of the wood and the texture of the wood has kind of an influence on how the overall image looks. I don't know if it does to other people, but that's how I see it.
And it's the same with walls. Sometimes the texture of the wall or the material of the wall somehow dictates how I paint or what I paint.

Charlotte: So you don't typically paint on the canvas. You go on to something a lot more textured.

Fin: There was a five year period there between 2015 and 2020 where all the stuff that I painted in the studio was on wood panel because I really loved the wood panels. But I did a solo show here in London last year, and I didn't want to just be about wood panels. I wanted there to be different textures and different canvases, different services to hang on. So now, because of that show, I took a year to produce the show. And because of that, I started to work on lots of different surfaces, and now I think I'm actually going to consign the wood style of the wood period to a certain period of my career. I'll still do it from time to time, but they won't be the sort of, like, dominant surface that I paint.

Charlotte: I love the idea of that because it feels very kind of authentic and real, as if you've got inspiration. Oh, there's a piece of wood. Let me just get my inspiration down. It feels very authentic.

Fin: And also, obviously, the artwork that I'm into is from hundreds of years ago. So there's a kind of an authenticity and integrity to that type of artwork that I personally think is missing these days. So if I'm able to work on a material that looks old or that has a story to it itself, it would that feels better for me. Where the canvas is industrial manufactured, there's not really much life in a canvas. Whereas for wood, I feel that even though it's dead wood, at the point when I'm painting, I still feel that there's, like, something in there that helps me to decide what to paint on it.

Charlotte: So in terms of your collaboration, are there any other kind of Bang and Olufsen products you're into?

Fin: No, I've known Bang and Olufsen, and because I was a DJ in an early part of my life, and obviously they're one of the kind of, like, the most well known names in speakers. The design of this and the previous artworks that I've seen, like from Factory Records, they really appealed to me because, obviously, being a DJ, I have a long history of music and musical influences. So in spite of the fact that I haven't painted anything that has a musical influence, I think if I had done that, it would have not quite felt right. It needed to be my typical style rather than something specifically designed to fit.

Charlotte: Yeah, that way you're staying true to your style. You're not trying to fit into.

Fin: Collaboration just by the nature of the world. It's two things coming together and somehow making them fit.

Charlotte: So you were speaking about music when I came in. So have you also kind of got your perfect playlist of what you would play on your speaker?

Fin: Yeah, I mean, I gave them top ten and it was so hard. It's virtually impossible for me because obviously I'm in in my fifties and I was into music from a very early age - inheriting my parents tasted music as well and then in the 70s, sort of the tail end of their musical influence was kind of like the fleet with Max and the ELO’s. But then I got myself, I got into Scar music and modern music and then into Chronic music like The Fresh Mode and Tears of Beers. And my interest in music has never ceased. When I was a DJ, I was a house music DJ, which again is completely different to most of the stuff I was listening to. And since I came out of being a DJ, the rotating music I think has sort of fallen back into what I used to listen to as a child is sort of like acoustic, melodic music. So it covers like massive span of different genres and different styles. And I'm not someone who sticks to a specific style and I'm not dictated to by necessarily trends. Like if I hear a piece of music that I like, I don't care who the artist is, I'll buy it because if it appeals to my ears, then I shouldn't care about whether it's someone cool or trendy. Do you know what I mean?

Charlotte: You like what you like!

Fin: Like if it's a Justin Bieber song from people my age, he might be seen as tacky or cheesy or whatever, but if the music appeals to me, I'm going to buy it because I don't feel I should be embarrassed or ashamed about my musical choices.

Charlotte: No, I can agree with that. So you have a very kind of broad spectrum of what you like. So just to bring it back to your art, what is it about painting these kind of female figures that keeps you kind of inspired?

Fin: Well, I mean, I do refer to the women I paint his muses only because there's no other word to really define it. But I mean, I'm essentially a portrait painter. It's just that I paint in a style that's modern, but really the foundations of what I paint is historical. These kind of Royal family or rich people portraits from the kind of like the Renaissance period, et cetera, et cetera. They're the things that I think is closest to my work. But of course, because I paint in a modern style with spray paint and acrylic and glitching paint, et cetera, it's kind of slightly left of center if you like. It's still depicting the women in the same way if you think of like, portraits like the Mona Lisa or a girl with a pearl earring, they have a specific stance about them. They're not painted to look subservient or subjugated. They're not painted in an unflattering way. It's always a flattering depiction of them. But of course, in those days, it's because those people were paying for those depictions and they're rich people and they're patrons to the artists. I'm a completely independent artist, but I still wanted to depict women in a strong and empowered way.

And the reason I paint predominantly Asian women is because they are the kind of ethnicities that I was seeing very few positive depictions of, especially in street art. And I think it's only gotten worse, to be fair, with the kind of pornification of everything online with Instagram and Tik. Tok is for me, is not good depictions of women, even if it's just doing a silly ten second dance on TikTok, they always, what's the word? Suggestive dance routines, which doesn't appeal. I'd much rather have elegance and elaborate clothing and elaborate hair and obviously elaborate makeup as well. This appeals far more to me.

Charlotte: I've noticed, just looking around, they've all got the same eyes that follow you around the room no matter where you look. What is that?

Fin: That's super important to me because the way that we historically look at art is regardless of whether it's a woman or not, you're a voyeur. You're looking at the art and your especially with women, you're kind of objectifying and sexualizing the depiction. But for me, the important thing is how they look back at you. That's where the defiant stance comes from. Like, if you were to take the head off this piece in front, the pose itself is not necessarily crquetish, but it does have a kind of a protective stance about her. But then when you look at the face is not the Stair is not to be messed with.

That's what I always try to do. I try to find the typical Hollywood tropes that you find for specifically the depiction of Asian women is that you have the lotus flower, which is the timid, meek woman who needs to be saved by the white man, the white savior. And then you have the dragon lady, which is the typical evil Asian woman who doesn't have any backstory. She's just evil for the sake of it. So what I try to do is I try to find the midpoint between those two things because the woman can't look too aggressive and too domineering, but she also cannot look weak and subservient.

Charlotte: Yeah, it's a balance between kind of strength, elegance and beauty.

Fin: Exactly. And I think part of the issue with the description of women nowadays is that there's a tendency to make them male. Like, if you think about the current wings of power in order to win this thing on Amazon, you have a character who's historically written in a certain way. And what they've done with her is they basically made her into a man. And for me, that doesn't really make any sense because if you want to empower women, then giving them male traits is the wrong way to go. So it is definitely a balancing act and finding a way to depict them in a strong way without making them too masculine.

Charlotte: No, I think that balance is very obvious in your work.

Fin: Well, good. I mean, obviously that's what I'm trying to do, but I can't really guarantee that I do that all the time because the way I see things is not necessarily the way you will see things or anybody else. My tendency with my art is to consider that once I paint it, I let go of it. It has its own life, it has its own way of appealing to people, and it has its own lifespan as well. Some images do very well, some of them just kept forgotten about.

Charlotte: So what has been your favorite piece that you've done on a building?

Fin: On a building, I think a choice between two. One of them wasn't actually on a building, it was on a cruise liner, but a decommissioned cruise line in Wales, and apparently in the middle of winter. So the experience, it was quite an experience. It was freezing cold, it was raining, but I think that kind of just added to it the end result. That piece was actually a geisha. Most of these are not geisha, by the way. That's a lot of things that I struggle with, is that in the west we see as a kitchen of an Asian woman and we automatically assume it's a geisha. But actually this one is Korean, the far one is Korean and this one is Chinese. But we don't tend to see the subtle differences between them. No, but that piece on the boat was a geisha and it was on the back of the boat and the setting was dreary and drab and windry and the image shouldn't have worked, I guess, but it does because the boat was decommissioned. It was old, it was battered, it was weathered, and the artwork became weathered as well. And it looked so amazing all the way through its life, whether the weather was chipping off some of the paint or the rust was coming through from in behind, I just loved it.

Fin: And then I did a portrait of Frieda Carlo in Guatemala, I think, four years ago. Again, 200 foot wall, lots of logistics. Lots of strange things, like the cradle that we were working from was hand built by somebody.

Charlotte: Oh, God.

Fin: And it wasn't operated by electric. You had to winch yourself up and down the wall. We got gorging and massive, but we almost got forging a massive, I guess you call it a tornado one evening, initially just got off in time. But again, all of those things, in spite of the fact that in the moment, they might be scary or they might be frustrating. When you look back after what they made, the experience all the better.

Charlotte: My goodness.

Fin: Because painting a wall is quite boring. You're literally looking at the same wall for like a week, ten days. In the case of Guatemala, it was eleven days, and it's not like nine to five job. It's eleven days of working from the first light of morning to whenever you can in the evening, sometimes getting some food on the way back to the hotel because you just don't have the energy to go back, get showered, and go out again. It's exhausting work. And I do think that because of that, it's not until the aftermath, like maybe a few days or a few weeks later, that you really kind of consider what the experience was like.

Charlotte: I bet. well, is there anything you would like to say about your collaboration? I mean, would you like to explain her a bit?

Fin: I don’t think I would, because I generally don't explain my work anyway.

Charlotte: You like it to be interpreted freely

Fin: Because even with the mask, people will interpret that in different ways. And in spite of the fact that there are definitive characteristics to all the masks that are personal to me, I don't reveal that to anybody. Because really. They shouldn't have an impact on how people look at them. Because those personal attributes to it are not just personal to me. But also. I guess they come from quite a negative space. Because I didn't start painting until I was 40. And I started painting because I went through such a. I guess you'd say a traumatic experience in my life. But I really need something to take my mind off of what was going on. And it just snowboarded very quickly. And I was a full time artist, I think, four years later. But those negative aspects are not important. They might have been important, how I started approaching things, but what I was doing was I was taking those negatives and making them into a positive. So I don't specifically want people to know what they are, because I don't want their mindset or their opinion of the work to be influenced by what I have to say about it.

Charlotte: Does she have a name?

Fin: Yes, she does. She's called Yuan Sue.

Fin DAC’s creation can be seen for the first time by the public in the West Contemporary art gallery at the StART Art Fair at London’s Saatchi Gallery between 12th-16th October 2022. Attendees will have access to a QR code that can be scanned to pre-order the limited-edition speaker, which will retail for £3,999.